Latest / Nightmare Success In and Out / Good Samaritan Prison Visit saves a life- Brian Dion Williams

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Good Samaritan Prison Visit saves a life- Brian Dion Williams · Nightmare Success In and Out

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  What happens when he works here? Becomes your reality.
• 0:03
  Hi? I'm Brent, Cassidy, welcome to
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  the nightmare success. And Now podcast where we
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  explore, how to overcome your fears.
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  And Nightmares is set yourself free.
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  We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
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  Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
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  These stories can be inspiring. Sometimes sad, there's some
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  humor but hopefully you can come away with a nugget of something
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  that will help you knock down some of the prisons you've built
• 0:29
  up. Up in your own mind.
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  Welcome back, nine, more success listeners.
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  This is where you come to hear what happens when your worst
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  fear becomes your reality, how do you adapt survive?
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  Overcome set yourself free. Well, I've got one of those
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  guest here today and it's Brian Dianna Williams and we were just
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  talking about, he's got the same initials of bread, Douglas and
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  Brian D on. He can always tell who who he is
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  coming in contact with and his town down and Because it's it
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  kind of falls into time frames but Brian has a really
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  interesting story. I got talked to him on the phone
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  the other day and just quite a story that you know it's
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  zigzags. I always like stories that you
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  know the vulnerability of zigzagging a story and you see
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  this somebody finds it you know they find their way and you know
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  the way that Brian's live in his life now is it's a Redemption
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  inspiration type thing and I always love to be able to sit
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  down with people who have that. I want to get into all that.
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  All right. Brian D on Williams.
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  Welcome in. Thank you.
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  How are you doing? Doing pretty good.
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  I Brian was just telling me he's in.
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  His looks like he's in his truck right now and he's been around
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  the world from Wyoming to Oklahoma.
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  He's down Joplin Missouri. Where he lives, which is not
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  down too far from the road, where I grew up as a kid down to
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  Springfield, Missouri. So, it's good people down there
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  in Southwest Missouri. Brian, tell me a little bit.
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  How you got a wild ride but wild story.
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  Can you take us back a little bit to Where it All Began?
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  Growing up as a kid? Yeah, I'll kind of laid the
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  foundation. Basically, how was that?
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  How was the youngest of four kids?
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  Mia. My there was there seven years
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  between me and my brother and sister.
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  But there was a had a brother that was the would be five years
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  older than me. Me, he died of Sids when he's 18
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  months old. And so my parents divorced about
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  that time and they had been split up and my mom even had her
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  tubes tied it had. So they try to make it work.
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  And then on, you know, in came me.
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  I entered the situation that she got pregnant.
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  They thought she had a blood blood clots, but it turned out,
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  it was me. So I was kind of a miracle baby
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  but it's a so you know. Yeah.
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  And so that kind of laid the foundation for the fact that,
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  you know, I guess they called my rainbow baby when you know
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  somebody has a baby after they've lost a baby and so I
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  came in, I came into this well I was, I had a lot of health
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  problems, I was praying me, I waited like four pounds, 4
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  ounces spent my first year in Children's Mercy.
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  Of course, I don't remember any of that, but what I do, remember
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  what I do, take away from that is, is I was raised up a very
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  sheltered, a child and a spoiled child.
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  I was always my mom's next chance at having having a child
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  again. Yeah, and so, yeah.
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  And you know, it's like one of those.
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  It's good to be the youngest in the spoiled everything, but but,
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  you know, I always tell people anymore, like the the verse is
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  true. Don't don't.
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  Spare the rod spoil the child, you know, even.
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  So I basically you know, I was raised up by my mom like said
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  and my brother and sister were out of the household early.
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  So it was basically just me and her and we were, we were very
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  poor, but I never knew it until like Junior High.
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  Yeah because you know, I basically had I wanted it was in
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  junior high that the the name brand stuff started coming in.
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  Of course, mom work three jobs to make ends meet so I couldn't
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  have that but through that I learned like if I want those
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  nice things, I was going to have to, you know, I didn't know the
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  word back then but I'm going to have to hustle.
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  You know what I mean? And so I was I got a paper
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  route. I got a I got a it was mowing
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  yards selling baseball cards, even selling candy bars and soda
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  pops in school, okay. I was known as the Candyman, you
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  know. Just trying to make funny ah
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  yeah the Candyman, you know. So yeah in my business Class.
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  They used to use me as an example, even though because the
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  teachers even knew what I was doing.
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  They're like, yeah, they were they, they were like I was an
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  entrepreneur in junior high. So, but, uh, you know, the, the
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  wild thing is, you know, like iíve listened to your testimony,
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  this last weekend. And, and there's some
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  similarities there because, you know, even though my dad was
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  never around my older, brother was like the one I put up on the
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  pedestal. Yeah.
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  He you know him and you know, I really look to him and you know
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  at a young age he went a little wild and he ended up going going
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  to prison. And I remember when he went to
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  prison, it was the first time was like, Middle School.
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  I don't really remember that. But Junior High.
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  He went to prison when I was in junior high and he would have
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  been, you know, 19, 20 years old.
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  And I remember thinking at that time, you know, like I'm you
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  know, I seen what drugs was doing to him I was like I'm
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  never doing that you know. I mean like not that never going
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  to happen to me. I was anti-drug I started on it.
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  You know mean I was I was I actually was going to go the
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  other direction. I wanted to be a cop you know?
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  I mean and so You know, but my grades didn't didn't coincide
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  with that. So I was just I was just that
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  kid that just wanted to Goof Off in school.
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  So needless to say, you know, I was, you know, I was pretty
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  decent kid in school, but the fact was, I didn't, you know, I
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  wanted to skip school out to work and I ended up getting
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  kicked out of school. The only, you know what way to
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  continue. After that, besides getting a
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  GED was Go off into the army. And so the Army found a loophole
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  to give me a high school diploma.
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  And so I went off there, I should have had, I had went with
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  the MOs. I wanted the military occupation
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  being an MP military police officer.
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  I would have, I would have probably stuck it out but I let
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  a recruiter talked me into being a tanker.
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  Oh wow. And I hated every minute of it.
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  I hated it. Like, I figured out real quick.
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  I'm I'm I'm kind of claustrophobic, you know, world.
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  So yeah, it's very claustrophobic, nothing.
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  Nothing glorifying about that in a so being the young stubborn
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  spoiled. Oil kid.
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  I was when I couldn't change my unless I just left and made a
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  battle. Buddy went AWOL from Fort Knox,
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  Kentucky, and Hike like 13, hours back to Louisville.
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  I caught a bus and I went back home.
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  Well, I thought I thought I was just going to go home and go to
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  recruiter and say, Hey, I want to do this.
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  Well, before I got home, the military police and the the they
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  call me in my peas they were looking for me.
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  And so off goes my first, you know, grow into being a criminal
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  because I was on the run, you know?
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  I mean I didn't want to know what I can tell, that's what I
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  was thinking. The worst what happens is Brian.
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  When you, when you go AWOL and the military, what do they do?
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  Well, you know, I was thinking the worst, you know, mean, I
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  remember, like I said, I remember my brother.
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  I'm thinking, oh man, I'm going to the brig, I'll be at
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  Leavenworth, the rest of my life, you know, I'm thinking the
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  worst well, little did I know after a year of being on the
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  run, I wrote my sister started dating a recruiter and he told
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  me she's like, no. He's like you're still you know,
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  early level, you know, me like so just go in there, turn
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  yourself in. Get a general discharge in lieu
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  of court-martial and go on with it.
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  You can cuz I was like, I want to, I want to go back in.
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  Yeah and he's like, I just I just Want a different MOS and
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  he's like you can go back in after three years.
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  And so I went turn myself in about two weeks to process an
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  out. And I was like, man I've been
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  running for nothing. Comes walk in but you know I got
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  that squared away and from there it started looking up because I
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  got a job through a friend of my dad's of time I was doing
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  on-site machine and nuclear power plants.
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  Kind of fell into a nice little thing for 21 years ago.
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  Twenty-one-year-old, you know, I was making six figures and for
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  about two and a half three years, I was doing that and
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  quite amazing. You would have been making that
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  amount of money at that age. Yeah.
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  In 20 some odd years ago. That was, that was a lot of
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  money. I mean it's still decent but a
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  lot then. But, uh, Doing back.
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  As you know what? I came back from the Army.
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  You know, I came back and I don't know why, I guess, you
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  know, being gone like that. I, you know, just makes you just
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  did changes you a little bit. Even though I'm gone for a whole
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  long time, I came back with a bad drinking habit, you know,
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  you know. So in that never left, you know,
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  I mean, he want started working nuclear power plants as I just
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  had more money to drink on, you know what I mean?
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  And I was just, you know, I was partying drinking and just
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  living the wildlife and but in between you know, working so and
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  then they pay you to be off in the summer time, so you're laid
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  off so you get layoff pay but just to wait until August.
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  So you know, we have paid to be off of the summer was just a big
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  old party, you know. And and so I I was doing that
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  and going to go through some things because, you know, like,
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  you know, with any addiction I mean, I just trying to fill a
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  void that I didn't know. I even had at the time, but I
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  was trying to be except try to feel accepted and wanted and all
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  that and found that in my party people, you know?
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  And it was one summer, I was in and you know, I But it's time I
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  moved off the Woodward Oklahoma. And at that time would was like
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  the meth capital of the world and I knew a lot of people that
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  were into it but I stayed away from it because back then I had
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  hair may be important in my hair, like I have some but back
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  then they did hair follicle test and then in the plants and so I
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  knew I you know, I gotta I Gotta Be, You Know, I Can Drink All I
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  Want but I can't use no drugs. Yeah.
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  And I didn't have no desire to because like I said, my deal
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  with my brother but man it caught me one night, you know,
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  you don't think straight when you're drinking.
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  And you know, the opportunity arose and I tried, you know, did
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  a line and well I was hooked nose Hook by yeah it wasn't it
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  couldn't have been more than a week later.
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  Maybe two. I was already.
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  I was cooking it you know? I mean like I was all-in.
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  Wow. And you know what?
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  Yeah well and it was one of those deals, you know?
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  I don't know, I'm sure play a part of, you know, I don't know
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  the time you don't really think you don't really think real
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  clear. I knew once I started using it
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  was like, my job was done at least for the next nine months
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  to that hair follicle goes back, nine months.
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  So I was just, I was 100% all-in and you know it got a hold of me
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  and you know, I was, you know, I was cooking and dealing and
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  running and gunning and you know it was it was it was it was
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  crazy. I didn't last not even in a year
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  doing it that I got my in my first raid and were you hanging?
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  Around like a whole different group of people to I mean, how
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  did that? Oh yeah, how did that all shift
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  for you? Because I mean, I would assume
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  that you were, you were a normal guy with a holding down a job.
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  A good job and then all of a sudden you file into a spiral.
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  I'm guessing with a whole bunch of different type of people in
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  your world. It was wild.
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  I, I did I, you know, I had basically living a double life,
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  you know what I mean? I was basically with this group
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  of friends, I was just drinking and Hanging out, being a been, a
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  good old boy and with this group, and then I different
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  totally different group of friends, pretty rough and rowdy,
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  bunch of bikers and different things.
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  And and I was just, you know, I was just somebody.
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  I wouldn't real proud of, you know what I mean?
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  And and interesting thing was, my mom had her first heart
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  attack before that. And so I moved her down there to
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  Woodward from Joplin and she was living in my house and I
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  basically hardly ever came home because that, of course it
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  didn't want Mom to know. But when I did, I mean, And I
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  just, I don't know. I it was it was while she didn't
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  know what to think and I'll get into that in a little bit but
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  you know, I was I got in you know, of course you know in that
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  lifestyle you said changes you but you know, makes a super
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  paranoid so you know, I was I was carrying guns.
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  I was you know, doing whatever. And I never brought any of of
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  course, drugs or anything around my mom.
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  But same time. I was like, I had this attitude,
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  like it's my house. I can I can bring guns in the
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  house if I want. You know, I mean, and she didn't
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  know to, you know, I mean like she didn't like guns but she
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  wasn't, you know, didn't think much I love it but I wasn't you
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  know, she'll night, she have an idea what was going on.
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  Well, the funny thing is and I was going to get to that when I
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  first got when I first got raided and arrested the first
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  time in 2003, she came to the county courthouse there.
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  And I remember playing this day her, my, my aunt and uncle
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  brought her over there and she's sitting there in that thing that
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  little courthouse and she just looked at me and my orange
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  jumpsuit, just tears streaming down her face and she's like, so
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  I guess you're not a cop and I'm like, what if she goes?
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  Well, you know, because I had actually in it and I'm sure you
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  know, I had, you know, No, let her to believe that in some sort
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  of some sort of way, but I mean, I was, you know, dress.
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  I kind of dressed, you know, black BTUs and height X and all
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  that, you know. Because mainly with that and
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  Hydra stuff you're cooking in the woods.
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  So you know I mean it's just it was just wild and but I think
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  she just wanted to believe that you know mean my mom was you
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  know still at that age shelter me and he just you know I was
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  the baby and she just wanted to believe something good out of
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  this whole deal and so she thought I was you thought I was
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  a cop. Doesn't know Mama, I'm not a
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  cop. That is not a common do so, but
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  that was kind of the start of it.
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  I mean, you know, I had seven years of on and off.
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  You know, how did they would go to jail?
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  How did the raid happened? It just because that sounds
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  early on. I guess that was a meth raid.
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  Is that what happened? Yeah well the interesting thing
• 15:23
  was it actually wasn't even are met and my dope.
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  Cooking partner, wasn't our lab mutual friend of ours that we
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  shared chemicals with He had an explosion, the anhydrous blew
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  up, he had to go to hospital. He got severe burns and stuff.
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  Well, it was at his place out in the out in the country out there
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  and and he had called my buddy and ask him to come.
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  Clean it up before the cops found it.
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  Well, literally, we know we get out there and we barely been
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  there, 20, 30 minutes and, and Cops.
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  Start rolling up and down the County highway right there
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  different, different ones and stuff.
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  And so later we would find out that they'd already found it.
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  They were just waiting for somebody to come out there to
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  catch him there. Yeah.
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  And And when they came in, they came in, they came in deep.
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  But, uh, it was, it was a wild deal.
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  We, you know, at the time you know, we, you know, we had
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  enough money. We had one of the, you know, we
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  both had one of the best of two of the best lawyers around and
• 16:15
  that kind of helped. And then that one, you know, it
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  was it was a true blessing that I just you know if they don't
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  what is it? Don't look a gift horse in the
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  mouth but what I did and you know what I mean, but I that
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  buddy of mine, he had a, he had a rap sheet, a mile long and
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  been to prison and stuff and and I Didn't and so he kind of
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  looked at me like a little brother and so, you know, we
• 16:35
  went through Court, we went through all this trying to beat
• 16:37
  it up, right? And and he caught a couple more
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  little cases here and there, but he decided he was going to, you
• 16:42
  know, I didn't even know he was going to do it until the day.
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  Did he took a plea? And and then he turned around on
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  that flee and he just told him he's like you know, he didn't
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  know anything. I told him, you know, I just
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  asked him for a ride. I told him stay in the truck but
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  you know, when you guys pulled up he'd gotten out but he had no
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  knowledge. Well, they had enough.
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  People snitch in and whatever else that they knew that was not
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  true, but they could not prove it.
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  So what they did, what they told my attorney was they're not
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  going to let me go scot-free but they were they're gonna give me
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  a charge of accessory after the fact which meant like after we
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  got there and basically they cuz they ask me.
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  What do I what point did, you know?
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  There was a meth lab there. I'm like, well when all your
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  guys suited up started, bringing it out of the house, you know,
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  even though it's, you know, with live, but that's what I said.
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  And, you know, they're like, well, it's accessory after the
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  fact, when like, well, how would I be annoying?
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  But Well, you know, I mean I was they with that charge.
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  They were going to give me a three-year deferred sentence
• 17:37
  which would have been a blessing and I had, you know,
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  straightened up at that point because it would've went off my
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  record but I stayed clean for a little bit.
• 17:47
  And you know like I said I mean it we could be here all day
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  talking about what happened throughout the seven years.
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  But like I always tell people, I'm like, you know, basically
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  it's one of them deals like everybody has the crazy dope
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  stories and I don't really get into that because you know, It's
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  not, you know, not glorifying the Lord or but also, you know,
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  I always tell people, you know, my, if you see my Facebook, you
• 18:07
  know, it's says I'm not proud of my past, but I'm not ashamed of
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  what God brought me through. And so, when I share my
• 18:14
  testimony, I just basically say, you know, like the deal is like,
• 18:17
  you know, it took me to places where I never never expected to
• 18:20
  be. I mean, from trips to Mexico,
• 18:22
  dealing with the cartel, to being in a basement, in a, in
• 18:26
  the country, in the middle of nowhere, doing drug deals with
• 18:29
  nothing, but your boxers on and guns out.
• 18:31
  Because you think everybody's got a wire or something, you
• 18:34
  know, I mean, just stupid stuff that, you know, like looking
• 18:37
  back. I still, I still can't even
• 18:39
  believe some of the stuff. I mean, like, you know, it.
• 18:42
  But for the, you know, for the for the Lord, I should be dead
• 18:46
  or in prison still. So did you but get into
• 18:48
  situations? Where you thought your life was
• 18:50
  in danger and some of those deals?
• 18:52
  I mean, Mexican cartel. Definitely, yeah.
• 18:55
  Yeah, at the LA and see, here's what's crazy.
• 18:57
  And here's what, here's what fuels my passion for the
• 18:59
  ministry I have now is the fact, Like when I was going down there
• 19:03
  dealing with the cartels and stuff, like we took off on a
• 19:05
  whim, didn't even really have a connection down there and, you
• 19:09
  know, just just pick the border to go through and it would have
• 19:12
  to be Laredo and we're down there and we start dealing with
• 19:14
  them and little. Do we know we're getting
• 19:16
  followed and everything? And we're the only two, you
• 19:18
  know? I'm American Indian native,
• 19:20
  Native American but I, you know, basically the only two white
• 19:23
  people down there at the time because they were in the middle
• 19:25
  of a war, this is like a in 2005 six.
• 19:27
  They were, you know, they were there in a Cartel War with sir,
• 19:30
  they're always in, but But it was just a weird deal.
• 19:33
  They knew us that the Sudafed guys will not down there to buy
• 19:35
  but anyways my point is like like you know I had no fear to
• 19:39
  go down there because I you know, because the you know the
• 19:42
  negative stuff I wanted to do so now my thing is, I want to go
• 19:45
  wherever wherever the Lord leads me because if I could have no
• 19:49
  fear for the drug world and I surely shouldn't have any fear
• 19:51
  for the Lord's work. He claims the wettest use the
• 19:54
  fear in the yeah. Yeah.
• 19:56
  Yeah. And that and it's just like, if
• 19:58
  I'll drive clear down to Mexico for that, but yeah.
• 20:01
  Can't go across the street to help my neighbor then, you know,
• 20:05
  what's the point? You know?
• 20:07
  Yeah, so let me get this thing going back.
• 20:10
  Again, this little hybrid one to shut off, run out of fuel or
• 20:15
  electricity there. Well, good thing I sell
• 20:17
  batteries. This is my office.
• 20:22
  I always tell people like, this is your in your office.
• 20:24
  I'm in my own. Sounds good.
• 20:26
  Sounds good. Yeah.
• 20:28
  But, but yeah, so, you know, I It was a, it was a crazy ordeal
• 20:33
  all the times I went through. But, you know, I'll fast-forward
• 20:36
  to the fact that, you know, kind of what set the stage for the
• 20:41
  big turnaround. As I called my dad, Damascus,
• 20:43
  Road conversion, you know, and November 1st, 2007.
• 20:46
  I, but this time I've moved back to Joplin and, you know, my mom
• 20:50
  had eventually moved back as well.
• 20:51
  And she got her own place with rolls kind of flip because I was
• 20:55
  running and gunning so hard. I didn't have, I just kind of,
• 20:58
  you know, had prop houses here in there, whatever that I that I
• 21:00
  hung out at but I didn't have Place.
• 21:01
  Like I had an Oklahoma and so I would crash out of her place
• 21:04
  every once while when I wanted some rest and get away from all
• 21:07
  the nonsense and I had total out one of my vehicles couple days
• 21:11
  before. And so I on Halloween day, as at
• 21:14
  our house, I had some friends come over to pick me up and and
• 21:19
  you know, I remember just, you know, his mom still has never
• 21:21
  changed me. She just, I was just baby.
• 21:23
  I could do no wrong, even though it was obvious at that point,
• 21:26
  but I left there and she's just standing over there.
• 21:28
  Waving his be careful and and so the next Day.
• 21:32
  I was trying to reach her because, you know, of course,
• 21:34
  she had a little jeep that I bought her and, and I was going
• 21:36
  to call her to come, you know, come get me.
• 21:37
  Come, get me, you know, because everybody else was just, you
• 21:40
  know, off doing the thing and never could reach her.
• 21:43
  And so, I did Mom with her health condition, she didn't
• 21:46
  really go anywhere. So, I, I got a, I got somebody
• 21:48
  finally take me over to her house and which little jeep was
• 21:50
  in their driveway. And I was like, something's
• 21:52
  something's odd, you know, I just had a feeling and could you
• 21:55
  get her answer the door. So I end up, you know, the gut
• 21:58
  feeling was drawn up. I just kicked the door in and
• 22:00
  when I did, Did you know my mom sitting there she she was she
• 22:04
  was dead on the couch, you know? And well she does come to find
• 22:08
  out later. She had a massive heart attack
• 22:11
  like that morning because she had her coffee sit beside her
• 22:13
  and stuff but you know it was a rough deal.
• 22:16
  I remember it like it was yesterday at kind of I flipped
• 22:19
  out I mean I was it didn't help. I was high and been high for him
• 22:23
  how long but called 911 people came over and at that time I
• 22:28
  probably I must not have had any warrants because That was the
• 22:32
  only time I've ever had. And I counted it was so volatile
• 22:34
  with the law enforcement there that but yet, I didn't go to
• 22:36
  jail and I think it's just cause they felt bad for me but I was
• 22:39
  flipping out. I was just like customer and
• 22:41
  tell him get away, you know, they were trying to comfort me
• 22:44
  and you know any but I remember that time that I grew up when I
• 22:47
  was younger going to church for that time.
• 22:49
  I've never been so mad at God because I never quit believing
• 22:52
  any but I just felt like he was through with me and then with
• 22:55
  that I felt like you know like he was some evil Puppet Master
• 22:59
  just playing games with me at that time.
• 23:01
  Punishing me for my for my stuff, you know, whatever.
• 23:03
  How do I mean it was all kinds of feelings but at that point,
• 23:06
  you know, it really got real there.
• 23:09
  That was November 1st, 2007, and up until that time, you know, I
• 23:13
  mean it was all business for me on the, on the, on the drug
• 23:16
  style. But at that point it got, you
• 23:19
  know, where I just, I ended up at that point I had before then
• 23:21
  I've never used a needle shot dope.
• 23:23
  And at that time, I started shooting up cuz I just I didn't
• 23:27
  care. I everybody was around me knew,
• 23:29
  I had a suicide mission. Is my mom was like the only
• 23:32
  thing I had you know and so I know that the buffer for you to
• 23:38
  get there. Yeah she was the only thing
• 23:41
  keeping me to live in that double life style or even though
• 23:44
  the double life style and kind of go away solar got because
• 23:47
  everybody else you know they I couldn't fool everybody else and
• 23:50
  and I don't think I fooled Mama but she sure acted like I did
• 23:53
  but you know she just believed in me no matter what but at that
• 23:56
  point I just didn't care you know I mean and I knew you know,
• 23:59
  I can't remember. I was 20 T, I've been 2829, I
• 24:03
  don't know. And I was like, man, you know,
• 24:05
  I'm just going to be like, my brother, whatever you don't
• 24:07
  spend the rest of my life prison, whatever, you know.
• 24:09
  And so kind of narrowed down the people that would hang out with
• 24:14
  me at that point. Because everybody knew I had a
• 24:15
  suicide mission. I'd, you know, talk about, you
• 24:17
  know, just death by cop, whatever.
• 24:19
  You know. That's, uh, that's not, you
• 24:21
  know, he knows no easy way to put it.
• 24:24
  But throughout that time I've got arrested and bailed out and
• 24:29
  arrested to build out with different things.
• 24:30
  And And got another drug raid in like March of 08 and went on the
• 24:36
  run on that deal and September 21st 2011.
• 24:40
  Yes, the third twenty first, two thousand.
• 24:41
  Eight was the day that, you know, the, you know, I call it
• 24:45
  my Damascus Road conversion. I think I told you that last
• 24:47
  time but you know, it started like any other cooking dope.
• 24:52
  And I don't know, you were talking about the violence and
• 24:55
  stuff. I don't know if you can see the
• 24:56
  scar on my eye right here, right underneath her kind of killed
• 24:59
  over, but a couple weeks. Prior to that, I had some beef
• 25:03
  with another drug dealer and we got into it and he hit me with
• 25:08
  the butt of his pistol right there and caught me caught me
• 25:11
  slipping and stole stole a stolen car from me and in that
• 25:16
  and it had my guns in there. So many ways, long short of it
• 25:20
  is that that morning. Somebody told me, you know, we
• 25:22
  got, you know, got up just doing our thing, you know, and
• 25:25
  somebody got a hold of me, they were like, yeah, he's over here
• 25:27
  in Galena Kansas, you know Nina, we found him and I'm like, okay.
• 25:31
  So I had another gun, of course, and I was like, I tell people,
• 25:36
  this is the stupidest are the smartest smartest dumb dumb move
• 25:41
  I ever made. Was I couldn't find anything
• 25:45
  other than the ammo that I had. The magazine was only thing I
• 25:47
  had and so I went to go get some more ammo just in case any more
• 25:51
  shots. And so I go to Academy Sports
• 25:53
  and Outdoors of all places and, you know, my age, I'm a pretty
• 25:56
  good-sized fella now, you know, workout stuff but back then I
• 25:59
  was like 130 Pounds. I mean, not you.
• 26:02
  It was obvious, I was high and then also at the time, I was on
• 26:05
  four states most wanted and my picture in the paper and stuff
• 26:07
  is, I would know I was on the run and sobbing it was I was
• 26:10
  going to be spotted but I just didn't care.
• 26:12
  I was blinded by anger and so I go caddy Sports and Outdoors,
• 26:18
  buy a box of ammo. And thankfully they called the
• 26:21
  cops on me and we got out of the parking lot and then we just
• 26:26
  pulled out a parking lot. I mean, they let me leave their
• 26:28
  Force, they sold it to me, but they called brother.
• 26:31
  After I left and we get out there and I'm in the back seat
• 26:35
  behind the driver here. And and we look back, there's a
• 26:40
  unmarked, Ford Explorer Expedition that the yeas
• 26:44
  Expedition that, or Joplin had at the time, it was a, it was,
• 26:48
  it was a patrol vehicle but it was unmarked and it got behind
• 26:51
  us and, you know, and that lifestyle, you know, all the cop
• 26:53
  cars. So, you know, basically know all
• 26:56
  the cops name and their shifts. But, you know, I we look behind
• 27:00
  us were like, oh crap, you know? And it's my buddies driving, and
• 27:02
  his girlfriend's in the passenger seat.
• 27:04
  It was her car. And we go turning turn off on
• 27:08
  15th and make a couple other turns well that guy didn't
• 27:10
  follow us but okay we're good, you know, and so we get back on
• 27:13
  20th and we're heading down 20th Street and he pops up behind us
• 27:17
  again. But this time we think Cops
• 27:20
  coming over the hill when you're coming over.
• 27:22
  It's it's kind of where the new Vie talk is now in Joplin where
• 27:25
  the tornado wiped out. Everything, right.
• 27:28
  By the high school. It wiped out.
• 27:30
  Panda. They're coming over and I
• 27:32
  talked, you see in all directions, there's cops coming
• 27:35
  from every one of them and I've been my buddy look back at me in
• 27:39
  the rearview and he was like, do you want me to give you time to
• 27:42
  run? Is that moment I can still kind
• 27:46
  of takes my breath away right now, thinking about it, all
• 27:48
  these years later, but I felt the meaning of the word
• 27:52
  arrested. You know what I mean?
• 27:53
  I really felt it and I just, I remember looking at him and I
• 27:56
  was just like, I looked up in the rearview.
• 27:57
  I can see his eyes and he's looking back.
• 27:59
  He was ride or die, man, he was hiking up.
• 28:01
  I'll go wherever you want to go. And I just, you know, he just
• 28:04
  got out of prison, not long ago and I was like, you know, I
• 28:07
  don't want him getting any more trouble for me, you know, that.
• 28:09
  And I was just like, just go ahead and stop, you know, and
• 28:12
  about that time. They let us up.
• 28:14
  You know I mean and so we pulled off on off point of Street on
• 28:17
  Ohio and when we did cops come from that way they were
• 28:20
  expecting me to us to run or whatever.
• 28:22
  And so I remember taking the pistol and putting it, there's a
• 28:26
  map pocket behind the driver's seat.
• 28:28
  I stubbed it shoved it in there and just sit there and I'm just
• 28:32
  like, okay let's see if we make it out, you know.
• 28:34
  And and they they come up and they stopped at my door, the
• 28:37
  back, the back driver side door. And I just kind of looked funny.
• 28:41
  Try to play it off and roll the window down.
• 28:43
  He's like, can I Your ID and I was like them.
• 28:45
  I'm not driving this thing as he says I need your ID.
• 28:48
  Okay, they end up getting everybody's ID.
• 28:51
  I gave him since I've been on the run, I was using my cousin's
• 28:55
  ID. Oh no, and yeah, well he was in
• 28:58
  prison over here in Oklahoma thaws out.
• 28:59
  He don't need it and he's in prison.
• 29:01
  So I mean it's got to be straight.
• 29:03
  Well, they all come back up to the car and they're like mr.
• 29:08
  Miller did he step out of the car?
• 29:09
  And I was like yeah, look at them all kind of crazy in there.
• 29:14
  Okay, you got a traffic traffic. Warrant out of Newton County and
• 29:16
  I was like, yeah, I was like, oh no, it's so they arrest me and
• 29:23
  they put me in the backseat of a cop car, they get the others out
• 29:26
  because, you know what, somebody goes jelly, get searched.
• 29:28
  And so, I remember sitting in back of that cop car and I mean,
• 29:31
  I'm still feeling just like, it's done.
• 29:34
  You know, mean I'm done, you know, and they start searching
• 29:36
  the car, and, of course it was, it was a girl's car.
• 29:39
  And, of course, in that lifestyle, the girls there, they
• 29:41
  felt like they needed to pack everything around with him.
• 29:44
  They were pulling pose out in all this.
• 29:46
  Well, then I remember it was just like in the movies where I
• 29:48
  don't know, if it's neat fan or flashlight or whatever.
• 29:50
  He pulls out that pistol, hold it up like this, and he was
• 29:53
  showing it to the other ones like that.
• 29:55
  And I remember just yelling out the window was cracked open and
• 29:58
  I was like, that's my gun. That's my gun and I just can't,
• 30:02
  they never acknowledge me. So I just kept screaming it and
• 30:05
  my buddy. I know they can hear me because
• 30:07
  they were looking like this, shut up, dude, but I did not
• 30:11
  want them to go to jail for me because I was a lot of things,
• 30:13
  but I wasn't that guy too. Get my buddy's in trouble.
• 30:15
  So you know, we they end up. They let them go.
• 30:19
  Well, they took her eggs and she had like pills in her purse or
• 30:22
  something silly. But they took me, they took me
• 30:25
  to Joplin city jail. And and I remember, I got in
• 30:28
  there and they just they they fingerprinted me and everything
• 30:30
  and they put me back in a holding cell.
• 30:32
  Well then it wasn't long. Take them back and they're like,
• 30:35
  come on, come out of there. Yeah.
• 30:38
  They're like they have my picture, a mug shot up on.
• 30:41
  He was different mugshot. Of course.
• 30:42
  They had it up on his big-screen thing and We know who you are,
• 30:45
  you just going to just fess up to it?
• 30:47
  And of course, by that time I was, I was just feeling it, you
• 30:50
  know, I mean I'm like, you know, if you know, you're the experts
• 30:52
  in this and I was kind of just being a smart aleck and they're
• 30:55
  like, okay, well, you think you're funny we're going to give
• 30:57
  you a structure to Justice and that's a misdemeanor.
• 31:00
  And, of course, feeling the way I was, like, I had 77 felony,
• 31:04
  warrant. I was like, well, if you know
• 31:05
  who I am, you know, that misdemeanor.
• 31:07
  Doesn't matter. Sure.
• 31:08
  You know, any whatever. Give me what you want, you know,
• 31:10
  you throw it at me and lumet. I know, you know, This is this
• 31:14
  is where, you know, like later on, you know, God highlighted
• 31:18
  some things in there, like that little deal there.
• 31:20
  That was, that was a life-changing move for me and
• 31:22
  he, you know, he used what what man meant for punishment and,
• 31:27
  you know, to glorify him because the 45 days in City otherwise,
• 31:31
  otherwise, you'll see if I wouldn't have gotten that, I
• 31:33
  would have went straight over to county jail, but instead I had
• 31:36
  spent 45 days and City Jail. Well, they put me a little
• 31:39
  six-man sale and I remember I can't.
• 31:41
  This is the first opportunity mind you that Actually really
• 31:45
  slept as my mom had died and had been nine months and I started
• 31:51
  having some bad night trimmers and stuff about it.
• 31:53
  I was reliving it and I kept waking up just sweating and mad
• 31:57
  and blaming myself and everything.
• 31:58
  And I remember waking up one time.
• 32:00
  And there was there was nobody in this jail cell and they had a
• 32:04
  sprinkler system. I don't know why they would have
• 32:05
  this in city jail but they had a red sprinkler system running
• 32:08
  down the center. We go pipe those dangling down
• 32:10
  and I'm like I look through that and I was like, you know what?
• 32:14
  I've never felt more alone in my life.
• 32:15
  And now I was physically alone, not just mentally.
• 32:18
  And you know what? I'm just, I can hang myself from
• 32:21
  there and be done before they could ever get back here to open
• 32:25
  the door and pulled me down. So I mean I'm not just thinking
• 32:28
  about it. I'm plotting it, I'm getting
• 32:29
  ready. It literally at that exact time.
• 32:32
  They have, you know, you know, the bean hole you've been there,
• 32:34
  you know. You know.
• 32:34
  They they wreck that thing and I like Williams, you have a visit
• 32:38
  and at that time I'm just like who in the world is who's
• 32:41
  visiting me? You know mean and so Remember
• 32:44
  they got me out of there and I walked up to the front and it's
• 32:47
  little little gel and so they won't be up to the front and
• 32:49
  there's little old lady there, that friend of mine.
• 32:52
  This girl, I used to run around with, at that time I her mom was
• 32:56
  just sweet little God-fearing Christian lady.
• 32:59
  And she she's sitting there, she's she just, you know, I
• 33:03
  crashed her house, a few times and different things.
• 33:05
  And, you know, we made her to believe because I had it stolen
• 33:08
  Cadillac and we met her to believe that was my dad's, and I
• 33:10
  was a good kid my list. Well, when I sat down, she She
• 33:14
  told me, she say, she starts almost interrogate me like
• 33:17
  police, you know, she's like, so I guess that wasn't your dad's
• 33:19
  Cadillac. And I guess you're this, that
• 33:21
  the other, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 33:24
  She's kind of interrogate. Me and I remember, I kept
• 33:26
  thinking what she still be real. To me feel it feeling pretty bad
• 33:29
  when she realizes. Like when I go back and I finish
• 33:31
  what I was going to do, is she gonna think it's her fault?
• 33:33
  But that's the mindset I was in. Well she just she told me that
• 33:37
  she's all right I'm sorry. I did not come here to chew you
• 33:39
  out. She's like but you know, I did
• 33:42
  when I found out you were in here.
• 33:43
  I yeah, I put A list in every day that, you know, since I
• 33:46
  found out, I've been praying and the Lord just kept, you know,
• 33:49
  pushing at me that I needed to come speak to you.
• 33:51
  You need to come. See you.
• 33:52
  Am I okay actually goes, will he wanted me to tell you that you
• 33:55
  are not alone. Boy, that hit me like a ton of
• 33:58
  bricks just what I was in 6th grade they were right.
• 34:02
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 34:03
  And mainly that he know he as we call it he, you know, he read my
• 34:08
  mail on that, you know her. She read my mail on that.
• 34:10
  You know mean she knew exactly what was going on.
• 34:12
  It's really about yourself. Really something, fascinating
• 34:16
  really that she got in the car and drove down to the city jail.
• 34:20
  I mean a lot of people might think to do that but I don't
• 34:24
  know very many people that aren't your family.
• 34:26
  Get in the car and come and say they want to visit the person
• 34:29
  that's behind the wall there. Yeah, especially the person that
• 34:33
  you just, you know, disrespected her house and all that.
• 34:36
  It's like she told me she worked for the Department of Family
• 34:38
  Services. She's like you know if you got
• 34:39
  arrested at my house I lost my job and everything sir but she
• 34:42
  still through all that she was like I just knew I had to be
• 34:45
  obedient to what the Lord had. And that's why, you know, today
• 34:48
  I do the prison ministry. I do because you know, you never
• 34:51
  know what going in there and sharing a couple words.
• 34:53
  Well, do you know Ana? It was life-changing for me, you
• 34:56
  know, I tell people that I like of course, you know, like I said
• 35:00
  earlier I was I'm stuck. So I didn't go back, you know,
• 35:02
  we kind of cried a little bit out and she prayed over me and
• 35:05
  we went back, I went back and sell but I didn't just go back
• 35:08
  and hit my knees and, you know, transform right there.
• 35:10
  You know, mean but he kept working on me and she kept
• 35:14
  sending me letters. And throughout the time that I
• 35:17
  was in the city and I remember I still felt like like God just,
• 35:22
  you know, I got done, I done too many wrongs, you know, I mean
• 35:26
  like the lifestyle I lived was just too bad, you want it?
• 35:29
  And so yeah. Yeah.
• 35:31
  Well no. I mean I felt like it was too
• 35:33
  bad for what the Lord would have, you know, me like that God
• 35:36
  did when he was through with me emptied it?
• 35:38
  Yeah, yeah. I had no more grace and mercy
• 35:40
  available, but I remember going through a Sunday service just
• 35:44
  basically get out of the that little jail cell at the city.
• 35:47
  And this one, this one little dude, this one guy was in there
• 35:50
  and he was he was a rough-looking old biker.
• 35:52
  Looking dude had beard bigger than the beard I got now and
• 35:55
  he's in there telling us stories about how rough and tough he was
• 35:58
  and how the Lord just got ahold of him me.
• 36:01
  You know, just, you know, just transformed me and, you know,
• 36:04
  after hearing the stories, everything I thought, man, you
• 36:07
  know, God can get ahold of somebody like that and change
• 36:09
  him and turn him into, you know, you know, a great Christian man
• 36:13
  and I mean, I guess I maybe have a chance, you know, meaning he
• 36:17
  worked on me a little bit. That guy tried to pray with me
• 36:19
  and I remember telling him, you know, me and God still aren't
• 36:20
  seeing eye-to-eye yet. He ended up the next time
• 36:23
  praying with me. But the, you know, fast forward
• 36:26
  when I went to this, when I went ahead and went on to the county
• 36:28
  jail. I remember.
• 36:31
  Were, you know, prior I every time I got in jail I would I
• 36:33
  would pray to pray to God. No.
• 36:35
  Just cry out there like hey, you know, kind of felt like I was
• 36:38
  bargaining with God. I was like, you know, if you
• 36:40
  just get me out of this, I'll I'll serve you for the rest of
• 36:43
  my life. And, you know, needless to say,
• 36:46
  I would get out and I would, I wouldn't serve if you know so,
• 36:50
  but this time when I got the county, I remember thinking, yo,
• 36:52
  cuz I said seven felonies and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to
• 36:55
  prison for a while. You don't mean because
• 36:57
  manufacturing, possession, sawed-off shotgun possession of
• 37:00
  the gun, they got me with Ones like that.
• 37:02
  I'm like so I just told Lord, I was like man, if it takes
• 37:05
  spending the rest of my life in prison to stay off the drugs and
• 37:08
  serve, you then thy will be done and man, we start.
• 37:13
  Yeah, it was, it was the toughest thing I've ever said
• 37:15
  honestly, because I mean, I just, I felt that I was like
• 37:18
  that. I'd rather be in prison than be
• 37:19
  out there on the streets getting high and everything so, but I
• 37:23
  remember that county has stayed in County Jail that time I was,
• 37:26
  I, was there 14 weeks before I ever went to was my first court
• 37:29
  date and they had They'd given me two different public
• 37:32
  defenders because I'd done squandered off any, you know,
• 37:34
  every dime I had at that point but they won public defender was
• 37:39
  over the last, the drug raid in March that had the possession of
• 37:42
  a sawed-off shotgun and conflicting stay wasn't
• 37:47
  conspiracy because that's what the feds do, but it was like a
• 37:51
  intent to manufacture and so and the other one was over a couple
• 37:55
  possession charges and a possession of firearms stuff.
• 37:58
  And so, what they finally took me to my first court date, 14
• 38:01
  weeks, I hadn't really had much communication been right in the
• 38:04
  judge or the lawyers and stuff, try to figure out what's going
• 38:06
  on. And I just wanted to tap out and
• 38:08
  go to prison, really? I just want to heal County Jail.
• 38:10
  That's what they do. You know, they make strangers.
• 38:13
  Want to let me out of here. I'll go to prison.
• 38:15
  Yeah, exactly. And so what I did was I ended
• 38:19
  up, you know, but I went the, the one public defender over the
• 38:23
  smaller charges was like, hey, did your other public defender?
• 38:26
  Come speak to you yet. And I was like, no, I haven't
• 38:28
  heard from either one of you guys.
• 38:29
  He goes. Oh, well, they dismiss those.
• 38:31
  Other charges. As I hope.
• 38:33
  Okay, well that maybe I just I didn't ask didn't shock.
• 38:37
  I bet I know how. Yeah, I was like, I don't really
• 38:39
  think about that. Well then we, you know, he went
• 38:42
  he left out of there, he came back in and he's like, okay,
• 38:44
  well we got a deal. He's like, they're gonna if you
• 38:47
  wave your freely, if you waive your preliminary hearing to the
• 38:50
  there was a receiving stolen property, charge and the
• 38:52
  possession of either possession, precursor possession of meth.
• 38:55
  But I because I had both of them.
• 38:57
  But anyways, if I wave to those through, then they would they
• 38:59
  would drop the possession of firearm charge and the other
• 39:02
  Russian charge and I was like, that's big okay, you know me?
• 39:06
  Yeah, I was like, okay, so I came in with seven felonies.
• 39:09
  I'm leaving with to and, you know, a little bit from being in
• 39:13
  jail and stuff like, you know, I was kind of excited.
• 39:16
  I was excited but I was also like, I don't even know if I
• 39:18
  want to go back to the Pod talking about this.
• 39:20
  Yeah, right. I hate that guy.
• 39:25
  I'm like this just don't even know what I would think of
• 39:27
  somebody did that. But you don't mean, but I was
• 39:29
  just, I was flabbergasted. So So anyway through this time
• 39:34
  being, they're the same little lady that came and seen me.
• 39:36
  She had got the minister lady that had a halfway house.
• 39:40
  A faith-based halfway house in Joplin, she'd been coming to see
• 39:43
  me throughout this whole 14 weeks in county and she came and
• 39:47
  see me the day after that. And she was like, I told her
• 39:50
  what happened and she's like, oh, praise God, you know what a
• 39:52
  blessing. And I'm like, yeah, I'm still
• 39:55
  kind of like I'm still in shock. And you think why aren't you
• 39:56
  excited? I was like, well, you know,
• 39:58
  Kathy the her name was Kathy. I was like, okay, here's the
• 40:01
  deal. Like, I know how System works.
• 40:03
  I've been in and out of the system for a while and I know
• 40:05
  that these two charges and maybe an in jail.
• 40:07
  This long the next court date they will they will give me a
• 40:11
  like a know our bond and set me out with some probation.
• 40:14
  And she goes well that's good news and I'm like no because I
• 40:17
  know me also by the time the sun goes down I'll be high.
• 40:21
  I said because I got nowhere to go and I don't trust myself and
• 40:24
  she's like well you go to my place you know my my halfway
• 40:27
  house I'm like oh yeah. It's like but you know hers was
• 40:29
  for people coming out of prison and she's like she said well I'm
• 40:32
  Make it I'll make it happen. So she went to the court the
• 40:34
  next week I had a court date there and she goes in there and
• 40:37
  gets me released like furloughed to go to her drug treatment
• 40:40
  program and I went through a 21-day treatment.
• 40:43
  First I had to go through that first and then go into her
• 40:45
  program and then it was awesome. It was awesome.
• 40:49
  I I really felt like, you know, this is this is that, you know,
• 40:53
  happily-ever-after deal. I got out.
• 40:55
  Thanks, start working out. I started going to college or
• 40:57
  whether Crowder College. And, you know, I got involved
• 41:00
  with a lot of Ministries doing like Street Ministry.
• 41:02
  Reason stuff going to church. And I mean, I was really on
• 41:05
  fire, but that was in like March of 2009.
• 41:11
  Roll on over to like September 2009, the set that the same
• 41:17
  little lady that came to visit me in jail.
• 41:18
  She, she calls me up. I was coming home from school at
• 41:20
  day from Crowder College and she said, have you read the
• 41:23
  newspaper today? And I was like, no, I don't read
• 41:25
  the newspaper. And she's like, I'll be right
• 41:27
  over. I was by this time I graduated
• 41:29
  from the program to halfway house but I was assistant
• 41:31
  manager, house manager, ER and she's like I'll be I'll be right
• 41:35
  over what she brought the newspaper over and here it
• 41:38
  reads, you know to Joplin man, indicted for guns and drugs and
• 41:42
  I mean they threw a stack of indictment that it's those same
• 41:47
  ones they kicked out, that's why they kicked him out.
• 41:48
  So they go Federal on them. And so they use, they used
• 41:51
  everything. And I remember thinking about
• 41:53
  time, man, I was so angry because I was, like, man, here
• 41:56
  I've done this this and this and I'm still getting up in prison
• 42:00
  and, you know, I, she prayed over.
• 42:03
  She prayed with me and and I was just, I had that fight-or-flight
• 42:06
  mentality. Like, I wanted to run kind of,
• 42:07
  you know, meaning and thankfully it rather than running I called
• 42:11
  another friend of mine. Him, and his wife were there
• 42:13
  like lightning fast Live far from there, but they were there
• 42:16
  quicker than I would have ever imagined.
• 42:18
  Because they knew, you know, they know they've been through
• 42:19
  that lifestyle and they knew, you know, there's a time time
• 42:23
  sensitive Manner. And so they show up there,
• 42:25
  they're praying over me. And I don't remember, even what
• 42:27
  was being said. But I remember literally, as
• 42:29
  they were praying, I was, it was like, I was like, I could see
• 42:32
  The Garden of Gethsemane and, you know, I can see the old
• 42:36
  scripture talks about, you know, if this cup Shall Pass.
• 42:39
  All right, you know, you know, if the sculptural past and I
• 42:42
  will be done, you know, I mean like want to cut the pack.
• 42:45
  Pass. And then, you know, the third
• 42:46
  time, if this cup shall not pass without me, drinking of it, then
• 42:50
  thy will be done. And man, it was like using my
• 42:53
  own words against me. Almost II remembered immediately
• 42:57
  that prayer. I said in County Jail were just
• 43:00
  a few short months earlier, I was willing to go to prison for
• 43:02
  the rest of my life, right? If it's if it meant staying
• 43:05
  sober now I got a little taste of freedom and success and and I
• 43:08
  was like, oh, Lord, low do something different, you know.
• 43:11
  So it kind of get it helped. I mean, I'm not going to say, I
• 43:15
  went in to turn myself in to the to the, to the feds in
• 43:18
  Springfield and start a fight it out and there's not, you know,
• 43:23
  there's not much fighting when it comes with the feds.
• 43:26
  And I remember, I remember vividly it was like right around
• 43:30
  Thanksgiving because I got released back out to the Hope
• 43:33
  House to the to you know, because I wasn't deemed a menace
• 43:36
  to society or whatever. So, got forgot released into
• 43:38
  her, custody on that Bond, the bond set up and so I was going
• 43:41
  still going to school and all that.
• 43:43
  Well, my co-defendant which I hadn't really had much contact
• 43:46
  with reached out and he was like, you know, you just
• 43:48
  basically told me that he was fixing to go in and debris
• 43:50
  debrief but don't worry, he's not telling on me.
• 43:54
  So I was like it was some other deal whatever.
• 43:57
  I didn't hear anything else other than that.
• 43:59
  And so I immediately after Thanksgiving, I called my lawyer
• 44:02
  and I just told him, you know, I said, hey, I want to take a
• 44:05
  blind plea, you know, I mean like you know, I didn't know
• 44:08
  what that was at the time of we, you know, he's, he told me he's
• 44:10
  like, you know, you won't do it blindly.
• 44:11
  And basically, the blind Fleek is what they're charging us for.
• 44:15
  I had nothing to do with, like the trips to Mexico and
• 44:17
  everything and I thought if he didn't breathe, he's telling
• 44:19
  all. And he was one that went with me
• 44:20
  to Mexico and stuff. So, I didn't want any more
• 44:23
  charges. So when you, when you do a blind
• 44:24
  plea, you got the motion for disclosure or a disclosure.
• 44:28
  I think it is. The one that doesn't it.
• 44:30
  It locks it in. They can't go back and charge
• 44:32
  you with a whole bunch of other crimes later.
• 44:34
  And so, I took it kind of threw myself at the mercy of the
• 44:37
  court. And that was, I took the blind
• 44:40
  plea in January and right after that, I still on probation at
• 44:44
  Oklahoma. For those other deals and so
• 44:46
  Oklahoma, got wind of it, they sent, they had me arrested sent
• 44:48
  me the county jail and I got sentenced to six years in
• 44:52
  Oklahoma for that, that probation I had, but meantime, I
• 44:57
  end up day. I go to Oklahoma prison, they
• 44:59
  come and get me two Marshals come get me, take me back to
• 45:01
  Springfield and to sentence me and I didn't, I didn't know it,
• 45:05
  but like whole bunch of people from the from the church and
• 45:07
  wrote letters on my behalf and even showed up that day for
• 45:10
  sentencing. And I remember the judge he
• 45:13
  looks at me and he says They did my PSI everything him, I PSI in
• 45:17
  the sand and all the letters in this anymore.
• 45:19
  For anybody out there. Yeah, prehistoric isn't
• 45:21
  listening that no, definitely, and he told me, he said, he had
• 45:26
  it, just like this, he's like there, mr.
• 45:28
  Williams. I don't know.
• 45:30
  He's a guy. I've got to tell a 22 stories
• 45:32
  here, you know. Basically.
• 45:34
  And he says, I don't know, which Brian Williams is standing
• 45:36
  before me today. The one out of this or the one
• 45:39
  out of these letters, he says, but what I'm going to do is I'm
• 45:42
  going to sentence this one here, but if you ever get in trouble,
• 45:44
  Oh again or come back before me for a violation.
• 45:47
  I'm sentencing this one and I was like okay and I mean my job
• 45:51
  I'm Mike I don't remember once I got my own letters.
• 45:54
  You know that's a lot of times. It doesn't happen.
• 45:57
  Yeah it was it was a blessing and he is update that he gave me
• 46:02
  84 months and it was my sentence and I've been locked up for six
• 46:07
  months already. So then he turned around and he
• 46:09
  says, you know, will do time served on that which was a
• 46:12
  blessing because as you know, they don't always Other time,
• 46:15
  you know, take time and so, so basically turn around and up 78
• 46:19
  months sentence and then they send me back to Oklahoma and my
• 46:22
  time still rolling there. And so I go to the prison there.
• 46:26
  So now, I've got both sentences running and, you know, there's a
• 46:30
  lot for sake of time. I'll kind of speed it up but
• 46:33
  there's a lot of things that happen like immediately in the
• 46:35
  prisoner in Oklahoma. I went right into a Bible
• 46:37
  college dorm and got right into a nine-month intense Bible
• 46:42
  college class that was like eight hours a day Monday
• 46:44
  through. Friday, studying the Bible, you
• 46:47
  know, meaning and so really prepared me for my time there
• 46:52
  and I was in McAlester for about two and a half years, finished
• 46:56
  the you know did two and a half on you know on it to close out
• 46:58
  that sick and then transferred Oklahoma or me to my first
• 47:03
  Oklahoma transfer center for the feds and state of the work Cadre
• 47:07
  for a year there. And I mean through this time I
• 47:08
  was doing college courses and stuff.
• 47:10
  I'm trying to do everything I could you know, better myself.
• 47:13
  I didn't want, you know, you know, You're really using your
• 47:16
  time to educate yourself and and that's how that works is kind of
• 47:20
  your strategy in prison. Was I'm going to get as good as
• 47:23
  I can get. Well I mean, yeah, I wasn't
• 47:25
  gonna let the time to me. I was going to do the time.
• 47:27
  I wouldn't know that do me. Yeah.
• 47:29
  That's why I kept saying no Mina I was kind of my motto with it.
• 47:31
  You know, there's my call I told people as my belly of the whale
• 47:35
  experience experience or or you know from from Jonah, the belly
• 47:39
  of the whale or the or the 40 days in the desert, it was my
• 47:41
  time no separation but time of preparation and And so through
• 47:45
  that, I took a bunch of courses and then I got to Fort Worth
• 47:48
  Federal Prison. The only thing I was bound to
• 47:50
  determine take a Vo-Tech and the only thing they had available
• 47:52
  was heating are classes. I had never had any desire to
• 47:55
  heat mare, but I took it and I took a seminary school to I got
• 47:59
  ordained and stuff. And but I, you know, I remember
• 48:02
  when I got it, when I got out of prison, that HP AC classes that
• 48:06
  really saved me. My first four years out, I was I
• 48:08
  was doing heating there. But, you know, I finished out my
• 48:13
  time in Fort Worth and I just remember, you know, I was always
• 48:16
  trying to be, you know, I wasn't I wasn't that guy that, you
• 48:20
  know, I wasn't, you know, beating people up with the word
• 48:22
  or, you know, Bible Thumpers, they call it.
• 48:24
  But I wanted my actions to speak and I gained a lot of respect in
• 48:27
  there. You know, I didn't have to
• 48:28
  compromise my values and my morals had respect for it.
• 48:31
  Didn't matter if it was Harry ends or if it was Crips or
• 48:33
  Bloods or surenos, you know me, like everybody respected my
• 48:36
  stance, they they understood, I was a Christian and I respected
• 48:40
  that, you know, you know prison. I mean It's a very primitive
• 48:44
  environment, but if you have respect in prison and it comes
• 48:48
  from a lot of different places, you know, somebody could be
• 48:50
  really good on helping right people's emotions, you know,
• 48:52
  some people can you know, there's so many different things
• 48:55
  in prison but if you carry that respect peace, it did your times
• 49:00
  different. Yeah, it is.
• 49:02
  It's a game changer. I mean, and then in, for them to
• 49:05
  like an act, like I tell people, it's not cool to be Christian in
• 49:08
  prison. Yeah, so I mean, I was, they
• 49:09
  didn't respect me because I was Christian.
• 49:11
  They respect me because I wasn't fake, right?
• 49:13
  You know, and so uh, they respected the fact that I, you
• 49:16
  know, I wouldn't waiver on, you know, that II mean I didn't, I
• 49:18
  also didn't treat them like anything less, you know, I mean
• 49:20
  like you know, you know it's not belittling like oh you don't,
• 49:24
  you don't believe in God. So yeah, I had a my workout cry
• 49:27
  had a guy that was a pagan priest, you know?
• 49:29
  I mean, but he's like Pearl, Christian boy, you're all right.
• 49:31
  All right, you know anybody but I still remember getting out and
• 49:35
  2014 got outside of them Gates and you know, man first time I
• 49:39
  really actually kind of cried. You know, it ain't cool to cry
• 49:42
  in prison but I cried on the way home, just on that one.
• 49:45
  Was there to take advantage. Got out of prison, Brian Nobody.
• 49:49
  They put me on a bus and send me a Springfield but yeah, but you
• 49:53
  know, I had a, you know, threw up while I was locked up, I had
• 49:57
  friends and mentors from the church that wrote the letters.
• 50:00
  They were the that that church really stood behind me and the
• 50:02
  people, man, they stay supported me and he sat calmly, they drive
• 50:07
  down to Fort Worth and visit me and stuff.
• 50:09
  And you know, I mean, that was, that was really all I had my dad
• 50:12
  passed away. I was in prison my sister and
• 50:15
  stuff. They do people still didn't, you
• 50:17
  know, which guy was kind of through, Ooh, with of me and I
• 50:19
  don't blame him, he knows I was through with myself at the time,
• 50:22
  you know? And yeah it took me the first
• 50:24
  time. No kidding.
• 50:25
  Like my first two to three years in prison.
• 50:27
  I didn't even like the shade. That's why I ended up growing a
• 50:30
  beard because I didn't want to look at myself in the mirror.
• 50:32
  I still hated the guy still hated the guy that I looked at,
• 50:34
  you know, I mean, it took me a, some groundbreaking stuff I did.
• 50:37
  The art that program in prison and if the feds don't know, if
• 50:40
  you heard about it, but that was a game changer for me and help
• 50:42
  me. Oh, yeah, yeah, I did it.
• 50:44
  I didn't get the year off because my gun charge, but I did
• 50:46
  it just, and I'm so grateful. because that was the that was
• 50:50
  the moment that just changed me as very be no looking at, look
• 50:54
  in the mirror and not blame that guy for for put down, you know I
• 50:57
  mean like for those that don't know the program is really
• 51:01
  rational behavioral thinking and it really makes you you know
• 51:06
  look at and decipher you know why you do things, why you think
• 51:10
  the way you do why you know and solutions to that and you know,
• 51:14
  I think, you know, there's a lot of good pieces to that program
• 51:18
  if It's administered properly. You know, there's a there's some
• 51:21
  people that that are teaching that program they want to be
• 51:25
  cops and they'll set people back and do different things that
• 51:28
  aren't productive. But mostly, I think, you know,
• 51:31
  the program itself has good aspects to it.
• 51:35
  We had some amazing people in there and I guess if, if I could
• 51:38
  ever choose one thing to do would be go back to being hurt
• 51:41
  our doubts coordinator because Mana, they really, they really
• 51:45
  have an impact that they don't even know.
• 51:46
  Because still to this day, I still use what I learned in
• 51:49
  there. You don't mean like the setting
• 51:51
  boundaries and stuff when I mentor and people, I basically
• 51:54
  because I still got my books and I basically kind of go through.
• 51:57
  I got it memorized, my kind of go through, you know, the
• 51:59
  healthy boundaries and different and something different things.
• 52:01
  And, you know, I mean, it's oh yeah, it was impactful.
• 52:05
  But that helped me to actually, you know, love the man.
• 52:08
  I am, you know, I mean, love myself, right?
• 52:10
  I love yourself. Can't let nobody, let me ask you
• 52:12
  this though. Cuz you, you you did real time
• 52:15
  and while you were doing your time you you were really making
• 52:19
  yourself a better version of yourself.
• 52:21
  What were you thinking about getting out?
• 52:23
  What was your, what was your thought process?
• 52:26
  What were you thinking? Like I'm getting out of here,
• 52:27
  you had learned some trades. So I mean you wasn't like you,
• 52:30
  you weren't someone that could probably get on somewhere.
• 52:34
  We're what? Is going through your mind.
• 52:37
  Well, I mean, of course, you know, I was learning trades and
• 52:41
  wanted to make sure, you know, you know, financially I was, I
• 52:45
  was all right because I, you know, I didn't have much out
• 52:47
  there and had lost a lot, but more than anything, it was, you
• 52:51
  know, preparation for, you know, because I knew the Lord had, you
• 52:54
  know, because, you know, I was always told, you know, like a no
• 52:57
  scripture says those who he calls he quips and I knew that.
• 53:00
  What I was going through with my equipping, I did not know.
• 53:04
  At the time I had never had any intention to go back in and do
• 53:06
  prison. It wasn't really a goal, I guess
• 53:09
  you'd say, but I just knew, I knew I had a story to tell and
• 53:14
  like, every chance I got while I was in there, I shared my
• 53:17
  testimony and as well. I also, when I was in there, I
• 53:21
  kind of was like, you know, I was I was trying to figure out
• 53:24
  some things. I I talked to a ton of guys in
• 53:27
  there and you know, figured out like like there's a common
• 53:31
  denominator like most guys majority of the people that are
• 53:33
  in there that I dealt with either come from broken homes,
• 53:37
  It's absent. Fathers fathers to didn't care
• 53:40
  fathers were working too much? Whatever.
• 53:42
  Yeah something like that. There was there was very few
• 53:44
  there. Was it every couple that I ran
• 53:45
  into the were like, yeah, my dad was perfect.
• 53:47
  My mom was first. I just I'm a knucklehead but for
• 53:51
  the most part they had that same story I had with, you know, Dad
• 53:54
  not being around and kind of just doing what they wanted.
• 53:59
  You know what I mean? Like, Mom couldn't control him
• 54:00
  after a certain age and so that I was kind of like, you know,
• 54:03
  researching that, I guess you'd say, you know, I mean I'm I'm
• 54:06
  very analytical so I Was analyzing every aspect of it.
• 54:09
  And most of all, I was trying to figure out how I wasn't going to
• 54:11
  become that person that just keeps coming back to prison sir
• 54:14
  because even the time I was in there, I kept I seen guys come
• 54:17
  back three or four times in a year because I thought, what are
• 54:20
  you doing? You like I was like, I am not
• 54:22
  coming back to prison. I'm not, I don't care what it
• 54:25
  takes. I'm gonna do, right?
• 54:27
  I'm getting out. I've got that mindset, right?
• 54:30
  Yeah. And that's really what it boiled
• 54:32
  down to. I was like, you know, I'm not
• 54:34
  going to let It's time become me, you know, me Nana, you know,
• 54:38
  that was really the big, the big thing, I mean II had goals and
• 54:41
  stuff, and my life right now looks a lot different than I
• 54:44
  ever imagined even in there. You know what I mean?
• 54:47
  That's what's cool about it like like, you know, we set plans but
• 54:50
  God changes those plans, you know, he like you know, walk us
• 54:54
  through a little bit about how your life is now because I think
• 54:57
  the really cool thing about your story is how you are giving back
• 55:01
  and and doing things that you learned to help.
• 55:05
  Other people which is you know a big part of this podcast is
• 55:09
  about you know inspiring people to break down the prisoners of
• 55:12
  their own mind to set themselves free and you have embodied that
• 55:17
  with which what you've done and how you've done it can you talk
• 55:21
  us through that? Yeah, yeah I mean I hadn't even
• 55:24
  got out of the federal halfway house.
• 55:26
  I didn't mind months there and just on my home visits coming
• 55:29
  back home. I had the same friends that came
• 55:32
  and prayed with me after I found out, I was invited.
• 55:35
  They Stout to me and they were like, you know, I've actually
• 55:38
  home planning on the on the weekends doing home visits to
• 55:41
  their house after a little bit and they're like here, what's
• 55:44
  we're going to go to this Recovery House in Web City and
• 55:47
  we do a Saturday Night, Celebrate Recovery class and so
• 55:51
  I went as a visitor and end up they you know the guys I got to
• 55:55
  talking to them. They want to hear my testimony
• 55:57
  so shared my testimony and they were amazed at the fact that not
• 56:00
  only I shared the same testimony but here I am, I'm still in the
• 56:03
  federal halfway house, coming down there.
• 56:05
  Are you in a Ravine? And and they were just they were
• 56:07
  fascinated with that and and I end up helping to lead the class
• 56:11
  and Mentor guys. And you know, really there's a
• 56:13
  lot of guys that I still, you know, have a good relationship
• 56:17
  with now. You know that, you know that I
• 56:19
  was able to pour into and you know us when you pour into guys
• 56:22
  like that, it's yeah, many Mentor them.
• 56:24
  They actually teach you more than you teach them sometimes,
• 56:27
  you don't need and so through that, you know, I know I wasn't
• 56:30
  gonna come back to Johnson. I had swore that your and I'm
• 56:33
  not I called the delians being I was like, I'm not going back
• 56:36
  there, I'm gonna get a fresh start in Springfield Little, did
• 56:39
  I know the sprinkles way worse, the job for with the epidemic
• 56:41
  but I was like, man, I'm not coming back.
• 56:43
  Well, that that HP AC license opened up a door friend of mine
• 56:47
  was like, Hey, I know the owner of a HP AC company here, I can
• 56:50
  get you a job and so it kind of opened that door to end up
• 56:54
  coming back. And so I ended up back in
• 56:55
  Joplin, right? The Lions Den, like, Daniel,
• 56:58
  they end up. So I end up, I was leaving those
• 57:02
  classes. I do like a Monday night,
• 57:03
  Saturday night class and just Really pouring into people and
• 57:07
  up through church. I got introduced, I got you know
• 57:12
  kind of set up on a blind date type deal with with a friend of
• 57:15
  mines friend and we went to lunch and stuff and ended up.
• 57:20
  That's I wasn't, I was not looking for a relationship and
• 57:23
  I've seen guys like fail so many times.
• 57:24
  Get out and just get focused on the relationship.
• 57:26
  But you know, I was a few, only a few months out of the halfway
• 57:30
  house, had my own little place and got introduced and ended up
• 57:33
  being the greatest greatest. Date I've ever had in my life
• 57:36
  Mount now, my wife is having good blind date.
• 57:41
  Yeah, but the crazy thing was she's totally 100% opposite of
• 57:45
  me. She's never even had a traffic
• 57:46
  ticket raised up in church or whole life.
• 57:48
  And I really thought I don't have a chance with her and I
• 57:50
  honestly, we both set out for the same thing as she came out
• 57:53
  of a ugly divorce and stuff and she was like, we both tried to
• 57:57
  scare each other off. Just put all our baggage on the
• 58:00
  table, one night at Logan steakhouse, and we were there
• 58:03
  for like way after closing date. Whatever they were, they were
• 58:05
  running us off. But needless to say, we ended up
• 58:08
  we're like, you know, it worked out, you know, he we but
• 58:12
  through. Yeah, yeah.
• 58:14
  Well, it just, you know, that Brokenness brought us together,
• 58:17
  you know, I mean and most of all the vulnerability because one
• 58:19
  thing I've learned with throughout this with all the
• 58:22
  lies and deceit and everything I had now, I'm transparent until
• 58:26
  it hurts. And I tell people, you know, I
• 58:28
  mean and and so I mean, I'm going to tell you the truth, no
• 58:30
  matter how bad it is, no matter what it looks like for either
• 58:32
  one of them. Yeah, that's a little too.
• 58:35
  Brian you need to be vulnerable and open me up and real.
• 58:40
  Yeah yeah yeah. It is key for sobriety really
• 58:43
  for me and we have read just in general but a male, you know,
• 58:48
  it's just is it was just interesting.
• 58:50
  You know, her family welcomed me in like no other, you know.
• 58:53
  And I thought, you know, I remember going to the first bar,
• 58:56
  second date, besides Logan's our second date was to her.
• 58:59
  My nephew that would went to the graduation this weekend.
• 59:02
  It was his, it was his basketball game.
• 59:04
  So her whole family there. They're very family orientated.
• 59:07
  The whole family is there. Grandma, Mom, Dad, everybody,
• 59:09
  you wanted then? I mean that's what you were, you
• 59:11
  know, craving. Yeah.
• 59:13
  Yeah. And I didn't know, I didn't know
• 59:15
  it at the time. But yeah, I was, I was craving
• 59:16
  and then there's like, you know, I asked her.
• 59:18
  I was like so. So how much do they know about
• 59:20
  my past? And she goes, oh, I don't hide
• 59:22
  nothing from them, they know everything.
• 59:23
  And I'm like, oh God, I know what I would think if I had a
• 59:26
  daughter and she brought this ex-con, my God, he chased him
• 59:32
  off with a gun, I don't know, but but no, they they love me
• 59:35
  like Like I was their own and his pretty cool.
• 59:37
  But, you know, we started going to a church that we got a
• 59:41
  actually helped launch a church. Now, became an Outreach Pastor.
• 59:44
  There did a lot of, you know, done a lot of Ministries and
• 59:47
  stuff. I still do.
• 59:49
  We're going to that church has since closed down.
• 59:51
  I go to a different Church in town but in run lead, the men's
• 59:55
  men's group and just every opportunity serving and serving
• 59:59
  and here recently until people I fought for seven years after I
• 1:00:05
  got out of prison to get, you know, I carry this around with
• 1:00:09
  you. Yep.
• 1:00:12
  Yeah. I carry that as a reminder, but
• 1:00:14
  but now I got this one to go with it.
• 1:00:16
  All right, that's my prison ID to go into Oklahoma prisons.
• 1:00:19
  That's a full cycle. Yeah, I use it.
• 1:00:23
  I kind of put it in there and I show the guys you know, like
• 1:00:25
  we're not really that much different, you know?
• 1:00:27
  I mean and but God can if God can do it for me, he can do it
• 1:00:30
  for them for those and on YouTube.
• 1:00:33
  Brian just showed his prison ideas, federal prison idea, the
• 1:00:36
  red card and then he showed the badge to get in to talk and be
• 1:00:41
  able to help people inside the prison, which is a big deal.
• 1:00:44
  Which by the way your testimony and interview goes into 275
• 1:00:51
  prisons are not federal prisons but their state prisons this
• 1:00:55
  podcast does. So you know, the whole idea is
• 1:00:59
  is those guys listen to that. See the, hey, man, people can
• 1:01:01
  make it out here. You know, breaking the A
• 1:01:03
  narrative go. That's, that's my, that's my
• 1:01:06
  goal. I mean, cuz when I go into
• 1:01:08
  prisons more than anything, I just shared life after prison.
• 1:01:11
  Not only like, There's Hope because everything that they
• 1:01:13
  told me or that you here, while you're in prison, isn't true.
• 1:01:17
  Like, like as far as like, oh, you can't get a job will, you
• 1:01:20
  know, I'm not with the heat in their company more.
• 1:01:22
  Obviously I'm with my matter Outfitters and and I've worked
• 1:01:24
  my way up to a supervisor position and stuff and we hire
• 1:01:27
  felons, you know, I mean there's so many people that hired
• 1:01:31
  sellers do they don't they're not necessarily higher in
• 1:01:33
  fellas, they're high. In character, you know?
• 1:01:35
  I mean, like, like I I hire people who I left her, I just
• 1:01:38
  did an interview earlier today, but I don't, I tell him, like,
• 1:01:41
  you know, if you just be honest with me, let me know what's
• 1:01:43
  going on and in the fact is is is it is it is it your past, you
• 1:01:47
  know, I mean and that's what my first employer with the heat and
• 1:01:49
  air company asked me when I shared my you know my situation
• 1:01:52
  with you. He says well I got it, I got to
• 1:01:54
  ask you is it in your past? Now you know I mean are you
• 1:01:57
  done, are you done now? And he knows I guess sir I am.
• 1:02:00
  He's like, that's all I care about, you know.
• 1:02:01
  He like you know so there is there is And just like, when I
• 1:02:07
  like another thing, you know, being in the feds to, you
• 1:02:09
  understand, like you can't never get they say, you can't ever get
• 1:02:13
  early release, you get the gun charge off of your paper time, I
• 1:02:16
  had five years of paper. Well, I, I had, I had a deal is
• 1:02:20
  kind of interesting deal. I entered a drawing.
• 1:02:24
  Local drawing to win a cruise and I end up winning that
• 1:02:29
  cruise. Well, I was, I was only two and
• 1:02:30
  a half years into my federal paper and I would like, my my,
• 1:02:33
  my Supervision officer was all he loved me.
• 1:02:37
  He hardly ever had to deal with me because I just doing what I'm
• 1:02:39
  supposed to do. And I remember he came over and
• 1:02:41
  I was like, man, I know, I can't get a passport to leave the
• 1:02:43
  country on paper. I was like, you know, I don't
• 1:02:45
  know what to do about this. He's like, well, right, the
• 1:02:47
  judge and see if he'll release your early on like that, that
• 1:02:50
  doesn't happen. He says, well, I can't recommend
• 1:02:52
  it, I can't go before and asked for, but you can ask for it and
• 1:02:55
  I'm definitely not going to stop it.
• 1:02:57
  And so I actually got ahold of a lawyer to draw it up.
• 1:03:01
  And my mentor gave me his lawyers number.
• 1:03:04
  I know lawyer friend of his number and I wrote him, he just
• 1:03:07
  told me to write me everything that you're doing that you've
• 1:03:09
  done since you got out. And I just kind of like a resume
• 1:03:12
  almost of my of my Ministry work and he sent me a thing, he types
• 1:03:16
  it up, send it back to me later on and he's like, I'm not going
• 1:03:19
  to, I'm not going to represent you because I don't want to take
• 1:03:21
  your money. He says after reading this he's
• 1:03:23
  like what I did is just type this letter up, you send it in.
• 1:03:25
  He says you don't need me, you know.
• 1:03:27
  And he's like you know, I'm like oh that's kind of scary because
• 1:03:30
  I wanted to be represented. I'll pay you just just go with
• 1:03:33
  me. I said it to the judge and that
• 1:03:36
  same judge, that sentence means, send it to.
• 1:03:39
  And he wrote back, he let me off early.
• 1:03:41
  And that's really cool. I went down and I wanted to ask
• 1:03:44
  you too because that you going in and out of the prison, what,
• 1:03:49
  what's what does it feel like? And what's, what are the
• 1:03:53
  reactions you get by, you know, you're walking the halls of the
• 1:03:56
  same places that, you know, you were as a prisoner?
• 1:03:59
  What is that? What's that world feel like to
• 1:04:00
  you now? It's ait's getting better.
• 1:04:04
  I remember the first few times because I go to the same prison
• 1:04:07
  once a month of right now. And the first few times we go,
• 1:04:10
  they go outside of the fence to minimum.
• 1:04:13
  We have a, we have a chapel service out there and then I go
• 1:04:15
  inside the fence. Now inside the fence.
• 1:04:18
  It's really different because they actually give us the keys
• 1:04:21
  and a radio. And they're like, they're back
• 1:04:24
  to, you know, go to go through three gates to get back to the
• 1:04:26
  chapel and then they'll send all the inmates back and I'm just
• 1:04:29
  like me and the guy go we with he's also been to prison.
• 1:04:32
  And we're like, I do this. Don't feel right.
• 1:04:36
  We're not supposed to have keys and a radio right buddy.
• 1:04:39
  It's just it's just wild. And I joke with the guys there
• 1:04:43
  because I came the first time visiting and I just immediately
• 1:04:46
  felt called to just, you know, make this my service because I'm
• 1:04:48
  going to eventually, my goal is to eventually because I'm badged
• 1:04:52
  in all the Oklahoma prisons eventually go to all the
• 1:04:54
  Oklahoma prisons sharing my testimony especially McAllister,
• 1:04:56
  where I was. Well, the one I'm going to do
• 1:04:58
  now is Harmony and they're like, I told the guy tell the guys all
• 1:05:00
  the time, I'm like, here's the deal.
• 1:05:02
  As like, I'll feel that they're like, I'm glad you keep coming
• 1:05:05
  and I'm like, I'll keep going as long as they keep, let me out.
• 1:05:07
  But the first time they try to keep me.
• 1:05:09
  I'm not coming back, I promise you, I will cancel my
• 1:05:12
  reservation. So it is, it's just a, it's just
• 1:05:17
  a different feeling because I remember Going to the Chapel
• 1:05:19
  Services, the whole time I was locked up and I almost envy and
• 1:05:22
  the people because I'm like, man, they get to go, they get to
• 1:05:25
  go home. You know, mean, I gotta go back
• 1:05:26
  to the cell so, you know, and, you know, I just, it's important
• 1:05:31
  to me. I mean, Just be able to go in
• 1:05:33
  there and tell the guys. Yeah, it's got to be an
• 1:05:36
  incredible feeling and and Walking The Halls and knowing
• 1:05:40
  what you did, how you made yourself a better version
• 1:05:43
  yourself and be able to walk those Halls back after being out
• 1:05:46
  and doing what you're doing. It's got to be an incredible
• 1:05:48
  feeling. Yeah, it's powerful.
• 1:05:51
  I mean, it just, it, it breaks me down every time, I guarantee
• 1:05:55
  the way home, I've got a two and a half hour drive, back home
• 1:05:57
  afterwards, from from where the prison is.
• 1:05:59
  And so, the way home I'm just, you know, I don't even listen
• 1:06:01
  music, I'm just, you know, seeing all it's just.
• 1:06:05
  Yeah, just like, you know, because I mean, I know, you
• 1:06:07
  know, I'm kind of an empathetic person.
• 1:06:10
  I put myself in their shoes and, and I know those guys, they,
• 1:06:13
  they hurt they heard what, what? Hopefully the good message and
• 1:06:17
  they're going back to their cells.
• 1:06:18
  And I hope it's really planting Seeds in them.
• 1:06:20
  You know, I mean, and I'm just praying over that prayed over
• 1:06:23
  those seeds and just thinking, man, I remember what it was like
• 1:06:26
  going. Going back to the house for
• 1:06:28
  count time after. Yeah, I'm like, you know, it's
• 1:06:31
  just, it's just different if I tell the guys, I'm like, man, I
• 1:06:33
  I get it, you know? I mean, I can, I can, I can
• 1:06:36
  actually say I, you know, I've been where you're at, you know,
• 1:06:38
  and that goes a long way. So it means a lot.
• 1:06:40
  I thought for people to come in that have been in, that's that,
• 1:06:44
  that creates a whole different version to the feeling that I
• 1:06:47
  think they get from that visit. I always ask everybody Brian,
• 1:06:52
  you know, you you've lived one of those lives that you know you
• 1:06:56
  read about and how you turned it around and how you were living
• 1:07:00
  the life that you want to live? Now what what do you think is
• 1:07:03
  your biggest takeaway through all that?
• 1:07:07
  Well, I'd say number one, you're never too far gone for the Lord.
• 1:07:12
  You know what I mean? Like, like I thought I'd done
• 1:07:14
  too much wrong and I grew up in a legalistic style of church.
• 1:07:18
  That taught me that you know, like, you know, like there's
• 1:07:20
  gonna be, you know, you knocking or he knocks and you don't
• 1:07:22
  answer. There's going to come a time
• 1:07:23
  that he's going to knock and you don't answer, you know, or vice
• 1:07:26
  versa and so it's like, you know, there's there's nothing
• 1:07:29
  you've done. That's too too bad that, you
• 1:07:31
  know, it's not worth Redemption, you know?
• 1:07:34
  And that's, that's the big thing for me.
• 1:07:36
  That's a, that's a big takeaway that, you know, like no matter,
• 1:07:40
  no matter how far you've gone, both you not, not just in the,
• 1:07:44
  you know, like with with the Lord, but also just in life.
• 1:07:46
  You like now, you know, I, you know, I said I didn't have any,
• 1:07:50
  anybody gave up on me, we'll all the same people that gave up on
• 1:07:53
  me, including myself now, believe in me, you know, me know
• 1:07:57
  those, same people. Yeah, they came back into my
• 1:08:00
  life and now I know that this the the scripture in
• 1:08:04
  Philippians, you know, I can do All things through Christ.
• 1:08:06
  Who strengthens me now, I know that literally, there's nothing
• 1:08:10
  that's impossible. You know what I mean?
• 1:08:11
  Like, like the Lord opens the door and then and no matter what
• 1:08:14
  it is, I can walk through, you know, I mean, and that's that's
• 1:08:18
  a lot, you know, me? Because he's, you know, I tell
• 1:08:21
  people all the time, it's, I don't, I don't ever try to
• 1:08:24
  preach the Prosperity Gospel but the Lord has blessed me more
• 1:08:28
  than I can ever. Imagine not just financially,
• 1:08:31
  but emotionally physically, and Every, Which Way, But but, but
• 1:08:34
  most of all, it's just like, he's He's returned everything
• 1:08:37
  that the enemy took from me and that enemy a lot of times was
• 1:08:40
  myself, you know, he's so so, you know, everything that was
• 1:08:43
  squandered away, you know, like I've shared my testimony lot of
• 1:08:46
  times with the what the story of the prodigal son and I was that
• 1:08:49
  prodigal son. You know, mean like but when I
• 1:08:51
  came back to the Lord, you know, he's like get the robe of the
• 1:08:54
  fatted, calf and a Signet ring. Let's go.
• 1:08:57
  I mean, like you were restored 100%. 100 folds where you were,
• 1:09:01
  you know what I mean. So, and that's really what I've
• 1:09:03
  living each day in a, you know, I tell people, I don't I'm not
• 1:09:06
  trying to brag I just on anything but God, you know, I
• 1:09:10
  mean like like you know, I mean I've got everything that I ever
• 1:09:14
  you're living it. But yeah, you know, I think
• 1:09:17
  here's my card here. I keep it in my wallet and I've
• 1:09:20
  got these leather bands that guy named magic made for me.
• 1:09:24
  When this is two things, I have that that really kind of gets
• 1:09:28
  tedamy into the fact that if I'm having a bad day, it ain't that
• 1:09:31
  bad, it's not that bad because it can be a A lot worse but I
• 1:09:38
  actually when I go into the prison yeah, when I go into the
• 1:09:43
  prison's the Bible I take in there which is the only Bible I
• 1:09:45
  got is my Bible for that. I got when I was in when I
• 1:09:49
  graduated Victory, Bible Institute the by the Bible
• 1:09:53
  College in prison but I carry with me that this is one of the
• 1:09:56
  chapel service schedules while. And I tell that, you know I mean
• 1:09:58
  I always share with the guys like that's all the Chapel
• 1:10:00
  Services we had and I mean I I remember them all like they were
• 1:10:04
  yesterday and I carry those because Do I tell I tell people
• 1:10:07
  on the outside here. Like if you ever get a chance,
• 1:10:10
  you know, an opportunity to go into a prison Chapel?
• 1:10:13
  Yeah, you'll see a different lifestyle like those guys.
• 1:10:15
  They got nothing but God but they need nothing but God, you
• 1:10:19
  know what I mean? Like, like that jailhouse.
• 1:10:21
  The oh everybody has a preconceived notion on jailhouse
• 1:10:24
  religion. But but like I said earlier,
• 1:10:26
  it's not cool to be a Christian in prison.
• 1:10:28
  So far in the chapel service, they're going to get persecuted
• 1:10:31
  in their own little way because I mean, you know, even though I
• 1:10:34
  had respect on the yard, somebody, some of my guys, I'd
• 1:10:36
  just like you going to church again.
• 1:10:38
  You know, I can kind of make funny clever, but but the same
• 1:10:41
  time it's like, you know what, like we're in there, you know.
• 1:10:46
  I remember Romo. Second guy, interviewed on this
• 1:10:49
  podcast. 80-some, odd interviews, go.
• 1:10:52
  He said, don't take away. Hope if it's hopes, all they
• 1:10:55
  have, you know, that could be the only thing that's something
• 1:10:57
  that's somebody's living on. It is Hope and and that's the
• 1:11:00
  last thing you want to take away from somebody.
• 1:11:02
  Brian. I think what you're doing is
• 1:11:04
  incredible. It's so refreshing to hear
• 1:11:08
  somebody, you know, take a really bad hardcore, experience
• 1:11:13
  and get through it. Grit it out, and then give it
• 1:11:16
  back. And the way you're doing it
• 1:11:18
  because it's not easy going back in there.
• 1:11:20
  But I know that it fills you up and I just really appreciate you
• 1:11:24
  coming on and I think, you know, you probably help some people
• 1:11:27
  today and, you know, and I want to tell people, if you have
• 1:11:31
  somebody that, you know, you get something out of this, share the
• 1:11:34
  show, it helps. Share it out and if you got time
• 1:11:41
  and I know it's a hassle but it's a big deal for the show.
• 1:11:43
  If you can leave a review on Apple or Spotify it kind of puts
• 1:11:47
  the show on on steroids the way that they promoted in the
• 1:11:51
  algorithm, I've got a book out there, nightmare success.
• 1:11:57
  It's all about my life and you can get it in Amazon Barnes &
• 1:12:02
  Noble, you need to get it at Walmart and You want to get a
• 1:12:06
  hold of me or anything about me? Brent.
• 1:12:09
  Caste.com. And like I used to say, when I
• 1:12:14
  was type of my e-mails, back from Leavenworth to the outside.
• 1:12:18
  Stay strong. I'll do the same Brian Williams.
• 1:12:21
  Thanks so much for being here today.
• 1:12:23
  I appreciate it. I was going to say, also the
• 1:12:28
  ministry of if anybody wants to reach out and not by coincidence
• 1:12:31
  Ministries, that's what that's to follow the the prison stuff
• 1:12:34
  going in. We actually It spawned out of a
• 1:12:38
  friend of mine who wrote a book about his testimony, where those
• 1:12:41
  books we've been putting all the prisons and jails and loves drug
• 1:12:44
  rehabs what is that on your face?
• 1:12:45
  What was that again? Brian, not by coincidence
• 1:12:48
  Ministries, not by coincidence Ministries.
• 1:12:51
  I'll put that in the show notes to, yep.
• 1:12:53
  Alright everybody, thanks for being here.
• 1:12:56
  Today, Brian Williams. Thank you nymeria, success in
• 1:12:59
  and out.